First of all my apologies for the quality of the photos, I had to borrow a camera which is rather old. I'm getting a new one along with advise on how to photograph using diffused lighting next weekend so I'll upload some better photos then. In the meantime please forgive the glossy black uniforms and the bright greens on uniforms, they're a lot more in your face in the photos than IRL.

I came to modelling this year by chance, I've just had to start wearing glasses for reading so wanted a hobby that would strengthen my close in vision. I was going to follow in my Grandfather's footsteps and build a model railroad but when I went to the hobby shop to look at trains I came away with an 88, a Tiger 1, an M16 Quad 50 and a Sdkfz 251/1 instead.

The subjects chosen were two Italeri Sdkfz 234/2 Pumas. Mainly as this was to be my first build I wanted to be able to screw up and not care and to practice a lot of the techniques I'm learning from these here forums.

The figures are a mix of Tamiya and Dragon stock figures mixed with a whole heap of DIY figures made from assorted arms/legs/heads and a bit of scratchbuilding.

The building face is a cut down Italeri one ( church I think ) with the rest scratch built.

The tree is from my yard with a mixture of different train modelling tree bits making up the leaves.

The well is scratchbuilt with stones from my garden and balswood.

Um yeah. I'll add info as I think of what to add, in the meantime I welcome all constructive feedback. I'm new to this so please be honest, a week ago my 11 year old daughter proclaimed "it's amazing you can do that with such fat fingers" so nothing you can say is going to make me run crying from the room, I'm way too old and grizzled not to be able to take negative feedback.

So fire away. Though I realise untill I get some clearer photos uploaded it may be hard to see a lot of the detail.

















More to come ....

Just making sure I was doing that right.

















more to come ....

A couple of B&W/Sepia versions for the old timey look.

The scene is meant to represent two vehicles of Panzer Lehr carrying Grenadiers of LSSAH post Fallaise. The officers are debating where they should be, the SS officer being a little more pushy than the Puma commander. Meanwhile the troops have taken the chance to dismount, light up, grab a bite, tend to nature etc.

I figure around that time when LSSAH was bereft of armour that it may have been possible to find this sort of mating as these units seemed to share battlefields a lot.

The vehicles have my own idea of stowage frames and an AA mounted MG34. I took liberties there but I figured as far as I could tell Panzer Lehr received the Puma in early 44 in Russia then were withdrawn to France for a refir and then battled through after D-Day so I figured a few field mods based on battlefield experience wouldn't go amiss.

The paintwork is supposed to show the field applied darkgreen paste used for the camo starting to wash away after repeated cleaning of the vehicles and rains. It's more pronounced on the righthand vehicle but the photos sort of show the camo net and cut branches covering up a lot more of the bodywork than was intended.

Hi Dean,

Congratulations, you have packed a lot of detal into this one. I like you setting and the interaction of the figures. The trees and ground work look great.as does the camo on the vehicles.

It's hard to see some of the detail as you've taken the pics in strong sunlight so there is a bit of glair about some of them.

Could you get a few more shots just in natural light? I don't have a photo set up, but usually take my pics in the early morning when the light is good but the sun is not up or later in the evening. You will be surprised at the diffeence.

Looks PDG to me but I am no expert on Axis stuff.

Al

Looks like you're right on the money there me ol' china.

Just tried this one before the light faded for the day and it came out a lot better, so might have another go in the morning and see what sort of results I get.



Since putting the decals on these I've since learnt the trick of giving them a coat of future first. Took me weeks to figure out what the heck future actually was. ( would have saved me a lot of grief if the build features said "I gave it a coat of floor polish" ).

Nice work Dean
You've put a lot of detailes on your dio and all of them fit and look very well.
Vehicle and figures are well detailed too and look really good.
Some more practice on different techniques and you'll become a master.
I can't wait to see your next work.

Hello
Very impressive for a 1st diorama. Some very nice detail work. The camo on the uniforms looks very nice.
Looks like youv'e managed pretty well with those fat finger's lol.

I like it !. A very busy scene , that is VERY WELL DONE. A few more pics of the vehicle detail would be nice. milvehfan

very nice diorama!feeling that Nazi would do somethining Baaad.

i like it..its a busy dio lots of things you dont see without looking for a good few minutes and you give hope to all of us in the "fat finger brigade"LOL nice work mate keep it up..

it looks like the nazi is a little dehydrated and needs to increase his water intake.

Very nice, very busy, but in a good way, each time you look at it, you notice something else.

the lighting and eye level shots are nice. when in BW it's almost like vintage photos. thanks for sharing.

This looks to be very nice work unfortunately the pictures are very bright and hide a lot of the detail. I look forward to the new pictures you are going to do.

so much attention to detail!! its realllyyy good! i really like the dandilions!!! only 1 thing i noticed: i dont think the helmets would have had camoflauge painted on- they would have been a grayish greenish blue. they only woud've been camo if they had a cloth cover

Cheers for the input guys.

The helmets that are camo do have moulded covers but I think in future I might bulk them out a bit with putty so they don't conform as neatly to the shape of the helmet, especially around the brim.

I've also learnt not to paint eyes with pale blues and greens and to do bigger irises. The second project is figure focused so i can practice painting faces and eliminate the drag queen look of a few of them.

I tried these this morning but seem to have the opposite result, too dark. It's pretty overcast here so going to do more after the weekend once I get the new camera and some lamps that are supposed to put out diffused light.

In the meantime these are a few more that don't have as bad a glare but are a bit dark in places.

Last lot for now













Any other tips on doing photos appreciated. It's harder than I expected to get good photos.

Great first dio!
Your future looks very promising. I forsee your skills steadily evolving as your creative juices flow from one project to the next. And don't forget to share.
By the way, how long did it take you to design and build this one?
What's next on the agenda?

All up this took around 8 weeks though probably half the time spent on it was looking for references on the net and reading all the techniques and build features on here.

Next one I've just started under "dioramas" as a work in progress. I want to work on figures, especially faces so it's going to be a defensive position with a Flak 38 protecting a small field command post with a number of people scattered around - Flak crew, defensive machine gun crew, radio operators, officers on a breakfast break, a recce crew reporting in etc. Just a "snap-shot" of day to day life waiting for the fighting to arrive.

Pretty nice 1st dio with loads of detail. You can only get better.
Only thing that really sticks out as 'out of place' in my opinion (and it may just be the photo) is the guy with really 'red' hair and eyebrows. The color looks unnatural, more like a dye job you'd see now days instead of in the 40's.
Nonetheless, it's damn good for a 1st go around...keep them coming
Oh, and strengthening the eyes with detailed work? I wear stronger reading glasses as each modeling year passes

Cheers,
C.

Really ? Bugger. So much for that theory.

Yeah I'm not overly happy with the red hair. I wanted to try different colours like blonde and red and not really that happy with how any of them came out, a bit too clown like. I had to make his hair as he came with the usual Tamiya flat top for a helmet and I think it needed more texture and depth. I've looked at photos of carrot-tops and blondes ( particulary straw coloured ) they seem to have much more noticeable depth than the darker colours.

I think you should send a review of those reading glasses to the site. I want a pair!
Its hard to beieve its your first model. Lots of very good details, and you´ve nailed a lot of them like the tree and the weathered timber on the roof.

I have a background in art which has helped, especially a few years learning to do wood inlay and decorative carving for reproduction period furniture. I tend to observe a lot, probably moreso now, I tend to find myself looking at people to see how prominent their lips are, how dark their hands are compared to their face etc.

This one the focus was on the vehicles and less on the figures, as a result I'm not overly happy with the figures. The very first thing I painted was the two crew on 115 and it shows compared to the end few ( last ones done were the MG crew and the guy on the engine deck of 114 ). I'm not at all happy with my face painting. The vehicles were a lot easier than expected, the tree came out better than expected and I had the advantage of being able to model the building on a derelict one ( actually an old skinning shed ) on the farm I grew up on that was built early 1900s by european immigrants so i figured it would probably reflect the style I needed.

I found the bit I liked the most was the little details, making the sacks and the pitchfork in the shed, making the flowers and trying to write "achtung" in red on the Panzerfausts ( and finally giving up and going with a few fine red lines ).

Rightyho, new camera, crappy overcast day, still practicing but hopefully these are a better representation than the earlier ones.